The stories typically involve stepsisters (a wicked woman's daughter favored and her step-daughter ill-favored), and a fairy by a well who rewards the polite girl (the stepdaughter) and punishes the ...

What we have, in the end, is no less a fairy tale about the Rich One and the Poor One, the payer and the payee, than, say, “Pretty Woman.” But it’s our “Pretty Woman,” for our time ...